john ashbery + THE FLOW CHART FOUNDATION

Poet and Art Critic

LITANY

Thursday, September 3rd, 2020

7:30 PM
RSVP: development@jonahbokaer.net
Runtime: approx. 80 minutes

Text by John Ashbery
Theatre concept and music score by Jeffrey Lependorf
Featuring Anselm Berrigan and Kyle Dacuyan, with Mark Allen and Jeffrey Lependorf
Presented by The Flow Chart Foundation

Meanwhile, keep

Careful count of the rows of windows overlooking

The deep blue sky behind the factory: we’ll need them.

—John Ashbery (from “Litany”)

Enter the dreamspace of LITANY. Poets Anselm Berrigan and Kyle Dacuyan will perform the joyously intimate, simultaneous columns of “Litany,” John Ashbery’s monumental meditation on knowing, memory, and presence. The audience will be seated in between them. At the same time, Jeffrey Lependorf and Mark Allen of The Flow Chart Foundation will play selections from Ashbery’s own LP collection by following a chance-determined score created by Lependorf with the help of the John Cage Trust. 

LITANY will be live-broadcast/streamed on Wave Farm Radio: WGXC 90.7–FM / wavefarm.org/listen

BIOs and Org Description

Mark Allen
A writer, performer, and filmmaker living in Hudson, NY, and an archivist for The Flow Chart Foundation, Allen has contributed to The New York Times, NPR's All Things Considered, and Vice, hosted his own radio show at WFMU, performed at Upright Citizen's Brigade, 92Y Tribeca, and curated his own show at Dixon Place, Pitch! His first film Sock Job is currently in production. He also once helped wrap a giant condom over Jesse Helms' house.

John Ashbery
Longtime Hudson resident, and widely recognized as one of the most influential American poets of our time, John Ashbery (1927 - 2017) received numerous awards for poetry, including the Yale Younger Poets Prize, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for Poetry, Légion d'Honneur of the Republic of France, Grand Prix des Biennales Internationales de Poésie, International Griffin Poetry Prize, National Humanities Medal, and National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and many others. Ashbery received a number of honorary degrees, including, from among others, Harvard and Yale, and was also the first living poet to have his collected poems included in the prestigious Library of America series. His work intersects with the visual arts, theatre, film and other art forms, and continues to inspire countless readers and artists in many different fields.

Anselm Berrigan
Poet, editor, and teacher, Berrigan is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Something for Everybody (Wave Books, 2018), and Come In Alone (Wave, 2016). He is the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail, and edited What Is Poetry? Just Kidding, I Know You Know: Interviews from The Poetry Project Newsletter 1983-2009. He is also co-chair, Writing at Bard College's interdisciplinary summer MFA program.

Kyle Dacuyan
Kyle Dacuyan writes poems and makes performance. His writing has appeared in Ambit, The Offing, Social Text, and elsewhere. He's shared performance work at Ars Nova, Cloud City, FringeArts Philadelphia, Haus für Poesie, The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, among other places. He is the Executive Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark's.

Jeffrey Lependorf
Composer, musician, visual artist,and nationally recognized arts leader, Lependorf serves as Executive Director of The Flow Chart Foundation, and also directs the Art Omi: Music International Musicians Residency program. A “master player” of the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese bamboo flute, he has received numerous grants for his creative work. A recording of his composition “Night Pond” spent a year aboard the Mir space station.

The Flow Chart Foundation
The Flow Chart Foundation explores the interrelationships of various art forms, with a focus on the language of inquiry known as poetry, as guided by the legacy of American poet John Ashbery, and promotes engagement with his work. Through programs for both general and scholarly audiences, showcasing both Ashbery's work and innovative work by other artists of various kinds, The Flow Chart Foundation deepens participation with Ashbery’s art, celebrates his work as an inspirational and generative force, and encourages the creation of new work. It also maintains the Ashbery Resource Center to provide opportunities for deep scholarship.